


the ghosts that haunt us

by arthursmorgan



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Sad Ending, Vietnam War, War, a very very tiny bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 20:58:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18038927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthursmorgan/pseuds/arthursmorgan
Summary: War killed, and it took what it pleased.For Klaus, war had taken many things, the lives of friends and his hopes for something better.But it had also given.The war had given him Dave.





	the ghosts that haunt us

The mornings. The mornings had always been the hardest part for Klaus. 

Waking up in a bed way too small on a mattress entirely too hard, giving him backaches that would last for days was something he was used to from living on the streets, granted. What he wasn‘t used to was waking up to bombs crashing nearby, to orders being yelled and clothes being thrown at him. To the agonizing screams of people dying. To the realization that he was a soldier in a cruel war.

He wasn‘t used to waking up in the morning terrified of dying.

Those mornings had been a nightmare far worse than the ones in his dreams. 

His dreams. His dreams, Klaus could revel in for days after, his dreams were a comfort. A freedom. Something to remember his life by. 

But more often than not, he dreamt of his siblings, he dreamt of them stopping the apocalypse, dreamt of them celebrating together, marveling in the beauty of the world they had saved from dying.  
And he dreamt of the lulling comfort of the possibility that he won‘t ever come back home to them. 

War. War is a pesky thing. Something Klaus, reasonably, never thought he would wind up in. War was a horrible reality; a truth that sank underneath your skin and befell your entire body. It changed people, and it rarely did for the better. It ate at people, at their minds, to their very core; the thing that made them them, that made them unique. It turned them into something entirely different of themselves; into fighters.

War killed, and it took what it pleased. 

For Klaus, war had taken many things, the lives of friends and his hopes for something better. 

But it had also given.

It had given Klaus something far greater than the wishes manifesting themselves in his fleeting dreams, more beautiful than the prospect of living out his life as an addict, of living on a scrape of what he used to be; not longing for anything other than his next shot to take his mind off of the voices screaming at him. It had given him a thing he wanted to hold onto; a thing so precious to him he almost forgot about the dead faces of his comrades yelling his name. 

Something he vowed to never leave and to never abandon the way he did his family.

The war had given him Dave. 

His kind heart and his comforting presence was everything Klaus had ever wanted but never hoped of getting. Because Klaus was, in the end, only just a junkie on the big streets. People just walked by him, he rarely caught anybodys gaze or attention, and if he did all he got was a condescending glare or a pitiful wave. He was barely someone anyone would care about. 

Yet here he was. Dave. The one person who saw something in klaus. The only person to ever love him for what he truly was. Dave was the savior Klaus used to dream of as a kid. And he was beautiful.

Dave made the mornings bearable again. Klaus didn‘t dread going to sleep anymore afraid of waking up the next day. More frequently than not, Klaus would wake up to warm breath on his neck, or an arm tightening around his waist; not out of fear or anger, but out of the want of holding him closer. 

Klaus cherished each and every moment he got to spend with Dave. And even though war took so much more than it gave; it gave Klaus the love he never thought he‘d deserve.

And Klaus would never regret it.

(Not even when war took back what was rightfully his. Not even when Dave laid in front of him, his eyes distant and unseeing; a fog taking over his beautiful and shining eyes. Not when he clung onto Daves limp body, sobbing onto his chest, begging for him to not leave him. 

No, he didn’t regret it, for he had gotten something far outweighing the grief; he had gotten to meet the love of his life, and he had gotten to spend ten months with him. This time was more than he ever deserved, and more than most people got. And those ten months were everything to Klaus.)

**Author's Note:**

> hhello i am back with a very very short oneshot. i love hurting myself.


End file.
